Star Trek Into Darkness Villain Revealed

There has been tons of speculation surrounding who Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing as the villain in Star Trek into Darkness, and in a recent press release, Paramount is finally ready to reveal his name. In the still put out, and in the headline of this story, we see Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto looking in on Benedict Cumberbatch in a cell, with a caption announcing that Cumberbatch is playing -- John Harrison.

Say what?

I'm about as confused as you are here. Everything we've been hearing over the past year has been pointing to the villain most likely being Gary Mitchell, or with an incredibly minuscule chance, Khan. Back in July, Karl Urban, during the press junket for Dredd was quoted as saying about Benedict:

He’s awesome, he’s a great addition, and I think his Gary Mitchell is going to be exemplary.

But then here comes Paramount claiming that he is some John Harrison who, to the best of my knowledge, has never existed as a main character in any of the Star Trek movies or TV shows (Trek fans, please feel free to chime in if I've got this wrong). Thus, all of this makes me think that this is either a ruse by the studio to take our minds off the leak by Urban about Gary Mitchell, or that there really is a John Harrison who had a minute part that will be turned into a crazy story, or maybe Abrams is really keeping this close to his chest and we'll all just be completely surprised come May when we finally get to see it.

Either way, I'm excited to see more, and from all the media released thus far, Star Trek Into Darkness looks like it should top our expectations and be better than the reboot.